Blue Skies; Starry Nights

Prologue

(Author's Note: This is the first book I'm actually going through with, I hope you enjoy, I present to you, Blue Skies; Starry Nights)

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                We laid on the front patio of my elder brother's 3rd floor apartment. Angela was the prettiest girl I knew in October of 2068. I glanced up at the sky like she was doing, I was pretending to enjoy staring at the brown dull color of it. I guess they only call it dark at night because it feels like it should be. The sky doesn't get dark in Phoenix, Arizona, not anymore at least, maybe it did when it was nothing but a barren desert.

            Now there's tall buildings, factories and labs around almost every square foot of land in this entire part of the state. These buildings were bright, they kept the sky from ever getting dark. So many lights from the warm colored lights of the apartment complex to the huge shuttering lights of the power plant a few blocks down. These lights shone brightly and lit both the streets and the 'dark' night sky that was filled with thick twirls of humidity and factory smog. It was brown and orange and an unnatural gray. The rain clouds never stopped in Arizona, I could see them perching at the top of the mountains slowly creeping down towards the valley.

          This is what I remember thinking about as I lay next to Angela on the empty hard concrete patio. My brother didn't like to bother decorating, so it was just a slab of concrete with a railing. "Do you think the next storm will wash away the smogginess?" I asked, trying to initiate conversation, something I was not particularly good at. She giggles not softly and answered, "You ask that every time Wally, don't ya know.." Angela continues speaking but I zone out, my eyes scanning over her pale brown face, littered with freckles of different shades and sizes like sprinkles on a birthday cake. Her long auburn hair was scattered with random twists and braids. It didn't make her hair style look incomplete like it should've, if anything it just completed the wild and unusual force that Angela Evans.

         "The smog doesn't clear much here, it used to in the mountains". She pointed towards the surrounding mountain ranges where a big tire factory had been built two years prior. I raised an eyebrow and turned my head away from the brown sky to face her, "What's it like... you know.. Without the clouds and all the city lights?" Angela paused to think, as if she was scrolling through her brain for the memory, like she had a picture of it in her memory just as vivid as any photograph. "My dad.. He took me to the mountains one day, you know, before they built that big dumb factory.." She said the first words and I already knew this was going to be another story of her adventures with her late father. I feel a strange sort of jealousy but also admiration as she continues on.

         "We had to hike up the mountain, I remember not understanding why, I complained for most of the way up there, but once we got there, I shut up real good." I looked at her strangely. "Why? What happened?" I questioned. I hope I didn't look too concerned. She smiled and looked up at the smoggy, orange night sky that I had known all my life. It was as if she was pretending that this sky was the same sky she had seen that night. "Wally.." She began, using my nickname, "There were stars." then her gorgeous bright green eyes stared into my dark brown ones. "Stars are so, so beautiful, they're like glowing salt crystals that someone spilled all over the sky", She looked so happy talking about stars, I wanted to ask more just to keep seeing her so happy. In truth, I was curious too, I wondered if the stars were like Angela's freckles. I wondered if they were different shapes and sizes like specks of melanin scattered across her cheeks and nose.

          "What about daytime? Can you see them during the day?" I asked, my eyes wide with something like admiration and wonder. The question sounded dumb, it was dumb, I don't know why I asked it.

               Angela giggles, trying to be quiet but failing miserably. Angela was not a quiet person, she was loud. Not loud, but loud. "No, no stars when it's light, but there's something even better, the sky is bright blue and clear". My eyes widened, "No way, you're lying," I had trouble believing that Mr. Doodle, my history teacher, had said that the sky was last blue in the 2040s. Angela grins, "Yes way, I saw it myself".

                 Angela and I continued to go back and forth about the possibility of the sky still being blue in some places for a while until eventually my older brother Bruce came and told us it was time for Angela to go home. I waved goodbye to Angela still thinking I was right. After all, I was 13, and I didn't know how wrong I was about a lot of things, like that I would see Angela again.

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